And so, finally we get some aircraft from the shoot.

Unfortunately, the first one is a Jetstar. Jetstar is a subsidiary of Qantas, which puts it behind the 8 ball to start off with as far as I'm concerned. It is a low-cost airline which was founded in 2001 to meet the challenge of other low-cost start-ups around that time. It's not anywhere near as obnoxious and rapacious as Ryanair ("You Pay More for That") in Europe, I grant you.

In February 2003, its on-time arrivals percentage was a whopping 62.3% (or, if you prefer, 37.7% WEREN'T on time) and its on-time departures were even lower at 61.2%, with 6.4% cancellations. Of the 4 airlines reported by the Federal Department of Transport (Jetstar, Qantas, Rex Airlines and Virgin Australia), this was a standout in "badness" on every metric.

I've never flown Jetstar, and unless I have absolutely no other choice and the future continuation of the universe depends on it, I am unlikely to do so. Not because the service (on the occasions that it's on time and not cancelled) is necessarily bad; I have no way of judging that. Rather, it's because I've known too many people whose Jetstar flights have been cancelled underneath them, and their treatment by Jetstar is such that I would normally expect it to be preceded by the words "bend over".

Even Qantas, and gods how I hate Qantas these days despite being a Qantas shareholder, eventually put us up in a decent hotel in Singapore albeit after leaving us on the floor of Singapore airport for the entire night. With Jetstar, you're often on your own based on the personal experience of friends and relatives. And if you like the odds that I've cited above, then hey, "Let's fly Jetstaaaaaar!", as their annoying ads used to say. Personally, I don't plan to take that chance.

This is an Airbus A320-200 (variant 232), registration VH-VFD arriving from Perth. It departed from there 12:24am as JST989. It was due in at 6:05 apparently, which makes it about 50 minutes late (since its official touchdown time was 06:56). It could be worse. Hey, it's Jetstar; it could be far, far worse.